4rnb. NEW YORK STATE LEGISLATURE March 3,20!? lion. Andrew M. Cuomo Hon. Matthew J. Driscol!. Commissioner Executive Chamber NYS Department of Transportation State Capitol. Second Floor 50 Wolf Road Albany. NY 12224 Albany. NY 12232 Hon. John J. Flanagan I-Ion. Car! E. Heastie Temporary President and Majority Leader Speaker of the Assembly Room 330 Capitol Room 932 Albany, NY 12247 LOB Albany, NY 12248 Hon. Jeffrey A. Klein Hon. Andrea Stewart-Cousins Senate Coalition Leader Democratic Conference Leader Independent Democratic Conference Leader Room 907 Room 913 LOB LOB Albany, NY 12247 Albany, NY 12247 Hon. Brian Ko!b Fion. Joseph Morelle Assembly Minority Conference Leader Assembly Majority Leader Room 933 LOB Room 926 LOB Albany. NY 12248 Albany. NY 12248 I-Ion. Joseph S. Robach. Chair Hon. David Ganit. Chair Senate Transportation Committee Assembly Transportation Committee Room 803 LOB Room 830 LOB Albany. NY 12247 Albany. NY 12248 Dear Governor Cuomo and Legislative Leaders: As we have ibr the past four years, e once again appreciate and welcome the opportunity to contact you on behal I’ of local transportation leaders. municipalities and taxpayers &om throughout our respective legislative districts and across New York State, concerning critical Ihuding for our local roads, bridges and culverts. ()PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER We first would like to take this opportunity to reiterate our support of the new PAVE-NY and BRIDGE- NY programs enacted as part of the 20 16-17 state budget. These initiatives are providing critical funding for additional road paving and bridge work statewide for both the state and local systems. As we focus on further improving our statewide infrastructure, we would like to take this opportunity to highlight the Consolidated Highway Improvement Program (CHIPS), which makes a great difference for so many communities, economies and motorists throughout New York. We continue to value your commitment and leadership on this important issue and we ask for your support as we begin our 2017-18 budget negotiations. We believe it is critically important to build on our past successes and renew our obligation to addressing the tremendous, unmet needs and challenges to effectively maintain local roads, bridges and culverts in every region across New York State. We believe an even stronger commitment in this year’s final budget to our locally maintained transportation infrastructure is not only feasible and justified, but also imperative to realizing our shared economic, fiscal and community development goals. Therefore, we are again proudly joining with our local leaders to urge you to support a multi- year strategy to address local infrastructure needs in order to help provide our citizens, local property taxpayers, tourists and motorists with the kind of local transportation system they rely on and deserve. At a time when local governments face increasingly difficult fiscal constraints due to the tax cap and long-stagnant state aid to municipalities, we cannot stress enough the importance of CHIPS. Furthermore, CHIPS is fundamentally important to local economic development through the hiring of local contractors and local workers — and, equally important, every additional dollar of state support means a dollar less that our local property taxpayers have to pay. We simply must keep making these investments in economic growth, job creation and property tax relief throughout New York State. First, we are seeking a $150-million increase to the CHIPS base aid program, which would bring total state aid for this program to $588 million annually. This funding level is necessary to help meet the increasing infrastructure needs of our local communities. Secondly, we propose an additional $50 million annually to the local portion of the BRIDGE-NY program, beginning in this coming fiscal year. This would allow some of the many local bridge and culvert projects that were applied for but not funded in the first round to move forward more quickly. We also urge that, going forward, a greater portion of the total BRIDGE-NY funding be allocated to culverts. These funding increases will provide the critical flexibility and funding that localities need to help meet their growing and challenging infrastructure demands. We not only believe there’s a compelling case for New York State to take these proposed steps to address these urgent local transportation and infrastructure shortcomings, we also believe it’s simply the right thing to do. Please review these points, which we have highlighted before, as you consider our recommendations: • Local governments are responsible for maintaining nearly 87 percent of the roads in New York State and one-half of the state’s 18,000 bridges; • Drivers on local roads contribute nearly half of the gas taxes collected in New York State; •48 percent of the vehicle miles traveled in New York are on local roads, yet less than 12 percent of the taxes and fees paid to the state by these drivers go back to maintaining local roads; • Federal transportation aid to New York (FAST Act) is directed primarily to the National Highway System (interstates, principal arterials and expressways), which means less funding getting to the local systems; • Estimates by the State Comptroller, state Department of Transportation (DOT) and other independent studies have shown a large number of local road mileage deteriorating and many local bridges rated structurally deficient or functionally obsolete; • 36 percent of bridges are deficient and 38 percent of road pavements are rated fair or poor, and getting worse; • According to TRIP, a national transportation advocacy group, roads and bridges that are deficient, congested or lack desirable safety features cost New York motorists an additional S24.9 billion statewide annually — nearly S2,300 per driver in some areas — due to higher vehicle operating costs, traffic accidents and congestion-related delays; • Although much has been mentioned about choosing projects that have a statewide economic development impact, we contend that businesses locate in towns, villages and cities and it is equally important to ensure local roads and bridges are maintained to spur economic development and job creation, while helping to control property taxes for individuals and businesses in local communities; • Every $1 invested in the CHIPS program is SI less the local property taxpayer has to pay. Furthermore, every $1 invested in the CHIPS program can save from $6-S 14 in long-term rehabilitation costs. This state assistance benefits the middle class struggling with high local property taxes; • Safety — how many of our first responders travel over our local roads and bridges to get to an emergency or crisis? How many of our children and grandchildren are placed on school buses every morning and travel over local roads and bridges? It is troubling that we may be risking tragic accidents involving our children, first responders, families, farmers and motorists overall because we are not making the critical and necessary safety improvements to address this growing crisis to fix our local roads and bridges; • Our nationally- and internationally-recognized agriculture and tourism industries are equally dependent upon a well-maintained and viable local infrastructure. Going from a well-conditioned state road to a deteriorating local road or deficient bridge does not send the right message to our Local visitors and farmers; • Locally administered highway projects will result in business for local contractors and work crews that will provide local employment and economic opportunities; • The State Comptroller further estimates there will be $89 billion in unmet local infrastructure needs over the next 20 years with much of this shortfall on the already deteriorating local transportation system; and • According to an analysis by the NYS Association of Town Superintendents of Highways, the local highway system faces an annual funding gap of $1.3 billion. Adding to the alarming urgency of all of the above, we also have to recognize that local governments continue to struggle to address budgetary demands in the face of the state-imposed property tax cap and freeze, rising pension and healthcare costs, unfunded state mandates, and stagnant Aid to Municipalities (AIM). This clearly demonstrates the incredible challenge facing our local municipalities to meet the critical investment level needed to improve local roads, bridges and culverts. A stronger state-local partnership is the only answer. In closing, the commitment and investment levels we are seeking, through the CHIPS program and the BRIDGE-NY program, will build on the foundation we have successfully made in the last several state budgets and further solidify our fundamental belief that “Local Roads Matter!” With the renewed, vigorous state investment we have outlined we wilL finally move toward the safe and reliable local infrastructure we envision, an infrastructure that will serve as the catalyst for future economic development and job creation throughout our local communities. As always, we thank you for your leadership and thoughtful consideration of this very important request. We look forward to working with you once again to achieve these critical goaLs and thereby make the 20 17-18 New York State budget truly transformative for our local transportation system. Sincerely, 0 Senator Thomas F. O’Mara, SD 58 Assemblyman Philip A. Palmesano, AD 132 Summary of Senate Signees — CHiPSIBridgeICulvert Funding Senators: Fred Akshar, 5nd SD George A. Amedore, Jr., 46111 SD Tony Avella, 1’ 47)District John 3. Bonacic, SD Phil Boyle. 4th SD David Carlucci, 38” SD Leroy Comrie, 14th SD Thomas D. Croci. 3n1 SD John A. DeFrancisco. 50” SD Simcha Felder. 7ih SD Rich Funke, 5S SD Patrick M. Gallivan, 59” SD Martin J. Golden, 22” SD 47th Joseph A. Griffo, SD Kemp Hannon. 6th SD Pamela Helming, 54” SD Chris Jacobs, 60th SD Todd Kaminsky. 9th SD Timothy M. Kennedy, 63rd SD William J. Larkin Jr.. 39th SD George Latimer, 37th SD 45th Betty Little, SD Carl L.